


Dream Hunter (ON HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE)

by supreme_star



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dream Demon, Fantasy, Gen, Hunters & Hunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24209311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supreme_star/pseuds/supreme_star
Summary: In a world where entities born from dreams seek to cause global havoc, special hunters exist to prevent the end of the world as they know it.





	1. Slice And Dice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young woman dreams a wonderful place, but is then rudely interrupted by two uninvited guests.

There were flowers as far as the eye can see.

Bright, beautiful flowers that resembled the sun, brightening the atmosphere.

It was the perfect time for some light- or heavy, reading. Fortunately for Ais, she had the perfect reading material for just this occasion.

It was one of her favorite books. It spoke of forbidden love, and two people, though meeting in strained circumstances, defy all the odds put in front of them and finally embrace in one moment of calm and clarity.

To be honest, she read it enough times to the point that she could recite it by memory alone, but it never hurt refreshing one's memory. After all, re-reading a book you love is a wonderful way to go back in time.

As she began reading the book, the memorable scenes in the story began materializing around her.

Two figures, floating in air before softly landing the soles of their shoes on the field of golden flowers, holding each other in an embrace, dancing the time away as if they were the only two people in this world, the embodiment of young love.

Ais didn't seem to notice them, being fully engrossed in her book, but that didn't mean she was in for a rude awakening. She fully knew this would happen. It always happens when she goes to sleep and dreams a wonderful dream.

She was simply content with reading her book, and didn't mind if her thoughts took form and frolicked in the flowers. It honestly gave a nice ambiance to the whole place, making the dream that much better.

Her dreams, when they were good at least, never disappointed her. For as long as she could remember, she could always control her dreams to a certain extent. When she was young, she had to consciously strain herself to just change the color of a leaf from green to brown, but now she can manifest beings from her thoughts with as much ease as water falling from a cliff.

This wasn't something that could be realistically shown to other people, so it was naturally immune to exploitation or ridicule from her peers. This worked right as rain for her, as she had enough on her plate in the waking world already.  
  


But apparently, problems in the dream world were simply biding their time.

***

It all started with a single flower.

The normally golden aura that it gave off was turning a sickly brownish color, draining life from it. From that life, a small dark ball slowly spawned into existence. That ball grew, expanding its area of suction ever slowly.

Like anything else in this land of imagination, Ais didn't notice it in the slightest. It wasn't her fault, as many things she didn't exactly know where they came from tended to appear due to her subconscious. Sometimes they even helped her with issues in the past.

But the entity gaining in power did not seem to have Ais' best interests in mine. In fact, it wanted to devour everything surrounding it, as most chaotic things naturally want to accomplish.

It simply was floating in one place, patiently waiting for enough power to come to it, and absolutely _nothing_ would stop that from happening. Not that anything was presently stopping it in this case.

Soon, the once bright flowers were drained, and there was a murky dark color as far as the eye could see and even beyond that, and the entity saw this and realized it was time for it to take form.

First, it gave itself a human-like base, but it realized it didn't exactly need any special features like freckles or nails, so it only gave itself two completely white eyes, so the people it terrorized would know it was looking at them.

It was now time for its plan to enact. This singular moment would go down as history as the start of a new era, one where chaos was commonplace, and a new race dominated the lands.

Although it was realistically just born, it knew in its soul that it wanted to create as much havoc as inhumanly possible, and that would give it enough experience to evolve even further, even if it doesn't know what that quite means yet.

The entity walked calmly towards the waltzing dream couple, gave one tap to one of them, which gave a chain reaction that utterly destroyed them both in a short time. They didn't even have time to react to what was happening to them.

Now it was time to deal with the Dreamer. This part always varies in difficulty. Some have the ability to destroy the Dreamon simply by _really_ noticing it. Others are too afraid to use it fast enough.

Luckily, this Dreamer seemed to be too caught up in a book to do anything, so it just wrapped her in a cage of the dead flowers and left to do it's work and spread chaos throughout this limited land.

That is, it would have if it wasn't so _rudely_ interrupted.

***

A soft whistle began wafting through the area. One that absolutely _enraged_ the Dreamon. That teeth-grating melody will always alert anyone inside a dream that a Dream Hunter arrived.

This wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a clean win, the Dreamer couldn't call for help, _how_ did they even know-

A scythe flew by it's head and landed on the ground blade-first. Although it doubt that was accidental. It was a warning shot.

"So," The Dream Hunter spoke in a nonchalant voice, like they've been doing this all night and the work is getting to them. "Are we going to do this the nice and easy way, or the hard way?"

The entity grimaced. It's never the easy way, why even ask that?

Well, they never said the hard way couldn't be _fun_.

"Hmm, I don't really know hunter, why don't we find out along the way?"

The entity then lunged at the hunter, who foolishly thrown their weapon away, and was about to get a serious slash in the face.

Then they materialized another scythe from a ring that they were wearing, and effortlessly blocked the attack. 

But before they could retaliate, the entity expanded the space between them, although it was basically useless considering their throwing capabilities.

"You're an idiot, y'know that? Why waste the time protecting your weak 'order' when the obvious next step is to throw it all away and let chaos replace it for a bit? You might even like it! C'mon, i'll even give you a front row seat at the carnage-"

It's rant was quickly cut off when the Dream Hunters' scythe cut the Dreamon in two.

It didn't really hurt, but _man_ did it really make all this effort pointless.

"That's right, keep whittling away at your strength like that. Soon you'll see how truly pointless your efforts have been, and I'll laugh like a crazed hyena so loud you'll be bound to hear it in your final moment, reverberating for eternity."

The hunter gave a tired sigh. "Sure, whatever you say, just go peacefully now."

The entity gave a sly smile before going away completely.

***

Ais woke up, feeling content at having a dream that ended in a happy ending. Though something was different. What could it have been...

***

Stan couldn't believe the night he had. This was supposed to be a light shift for crying out loud. Those Dreamons seem to get more rowdy by the minute, and it's not helping him one bit.

Nevertheless, he whistled a familiar melody and rested, hopefully without any more distractions.


	2. Newcomer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another night, another hunt. Or is it..?

Stan wasn't one to do much things in the day. After all, nothing really of note happened during that time. It was usually just him sitting in a chair, planning his work list for when night fell. The day should be a time where you can seldom catch a break, what with the hustle and bustle of people walking to and from places that would either give them a sense of relief or a shot of anxiety.

That seemed to be the direct opposite for Stan it seemed. There was barely a peep from even the resident mouse ever since he moved to the out-of-the-way cottage, to which he had hoped would be a prime spot to have zero human interaction and ample time to relax with no sudden noises to disturb the peace.

He was certainly right about that. There were no people for miles from his home, as he was nestled comfortably in the middle of a forest, filled with wondrous fauna that also lived peaceful lives in harmony.

This didn't bother Stan in the slightest, even if it has been quite a while since he's seen another human being. But they're generally overrated, especially when he has cute critters that regularly come to his house for snacks, pets, or just to hear Stan's voice. At least, that's what he always thought anyway.

Other than that, it was a rather calm life. Although there were always times that loneliness reared its ugly head toward him. He was still human, after all. Luckily for him, it almost always went away with the rising of the moon.

The night always welcomed the start of a new work shift for Stan, but that didn't bother him. Night in the forest gave way its true beauty in his opinion. Previously bland mushrooms would gain a fluorescent hue, gracing his eyes with aesthetically pleasing colors, dancing along the moonbeams. 

New animals would emerge as well, ones with gigantic yellow eyes and that towered over trees, walking in ground-shaking steps along the forest floor, looking for a nice place to exist. Almost always, would there be one almost crushing Stan's house, only to perch right next to it, where he could look on them safely, on rare occasions.

He barely had any time to enjoy the scenery though, as he has work to do immediately after the sun fell. Although he doesn't receive direct human interaction, he does get letters of ominous cries for help. They come in slips of paper, wafted in the air through the cottage window, right on his chair. They come with no return address, nor do they show his own. It's something that plagues Stan's mind often.

Regardless of the method of the letters, the contents are always the same. Someone is going to dream tonight, and within that dream, a Dreamon, an entity whose sole purpose is to cause enough chaos to escape into the waking world and cause immense destruction. So much so, that it would effectively turn the world, and its rules, upside down.

He doesn't really remember when these letters started appearing, but when they did, it started a never-ending avalanche of them whenever night fell from then on. Tonight was, to his dismay, no different.

The gist of the 1st letter was that there was a person who was about to dream about swimming in the ocean, but there would be a giant whirlpool forming, that would then invite a Dreamon to emerge from it, causing chaos- yadayada, he didn't really need to read anything after the first few sentences, since that's where the dream identifier info lies, and the other parts were just variations of it telling Stan to be cautious about fighting such entities, like he hasn't done this countless times already.

Well, better to not keep the Dreamer waiting, or some bad stuff might happen, who knows. Sometimes Stan wonders what would happen if just let one slip by. Would the danger really be _that_ immediate? 

Regardless, Stan picked up an ornamental flute, which was found laying on the cottage chair when he bought this place, who knows how old it is, and played a short and sweet tune. He can't remember when he learned it, but it seems to come naturally to him whenever he has a task in mind related to dreams.

Next, he thought of swimming. The feeling of floating in an endless ocean, and then kicking all limbs in a steady and purposeful motion, gaining speed and moving ever closer to an unforeseen goal. 

Then, the sea began to create a small hole in itself, which was constantly trying to refill itself, creating a whirlpool. Within said whirlpool, a small dark green ball manifested, sucking up the water in hopes to drain the sea.

Yep, this is the place. Stan stopped playing the flute and started searching for the Dreamer, who, in the most likely scenario, is trapped somewhere by the Dreamon, or, not even registering that two unknown entities invaded their mind.

After a few seconds, the Dreamer was located. Unfortunately, the Dreamon took that time to fully form, and even had an opportunity to encase the Dreamer in a sphere of water. They wouldn't drown, but they couldn't leave. At least, that would be the intended purpose, if the Dreamer noticed they were trapped at all.

They just, kept on swimming! They didn't seem to notice anything even slightly different to their dream! Ugh, these Dreamers are the worst. Sometimes, Stan lucks out and finds that the Dreamon was already taken care of by the resident Dreamer, and he could gain some small rest between hunts. This, obviously, was not one of those times.

Before Stan could lock on to the Dreamon and hopefully make the killing shot before being noticed, he saw another human. Normally, this would be no cause of alarm, as they could be a figment of the Dreamer's imagination, and in the off-chance it's another Dreamer that waltzed into someone else's dream, they were even more useless than the Dreamer themselves. 

Stan however, was more perplexed by the fact that they were dodging the Dreamon's attempts to be captured. Diving and jumping in the air, enraging the Dreamon to no end. How are they doing that?

The human was outright playing with the Dreamon, who was yelling some _very_ choice words at them, although they didn't sour their mood at all. Then, with one swift motion, they jumped to where the sphere trapping the Dreamer was located, and _kicked_ it at the Dreamon, crushing it into oblivion.

The Dreamer, unsurprisingly, just kept on swimming, as if this was normal. The world, however, began turning brighter, signaling that they were waking up. All Stan had to do was wait for the familiar white shine and he'd wake up on his chair, feeling _very_ tired.

However, right before he was ejected from the dream, the other uninvited dream guest looked him straight in the eyes, and _winked_. It was then complete with a knowing smile, and an unshakable feeling that this wasn't the last time they would meet.

Stan woke up, sweating. This had never happened before. Why did it happen now? More importantly, _how_ did it happen now? He thought he was the only one! This had to be researched further. 

He _had_ to meet that interloper again and ask the appropriate questions, how did they first enter a dream, how were they able to enter into his territory? How _dare_ they steal his kill? And, why was he so happy to see someone that he never even met?


End file.
